Romney-Santorum Really Just A One-Man Race Anyway

So it’s down to Romney vs Santorum now. But when when it comes to the 1% it’s really just a one-man race. The difference between Romney and Santorum is that while Romney’s policies benefit only the 1%, Santorum’s policies only benefit the 1%.

Romney’s economic agenda circa September 2011 consisted of a refusal to cut corporate taxes or raise taxes on individuals, an increase in defense spending, and a balanced budget amendment that would all but guarantee slashing spending on just about everything but defeat.

But that was then, and facing the Republican extremist base, Romney came up with a new plan,

For starter’s, Romney’s new plan would not only extend the Bush tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of this year, but would also cut individual income tax rates across-the-board another 20%, reducing the top rate to 28% and the bottom rate to 8%, from 35% and 10%. In addition, Romeny’s new proposal would retain the 15% top rate for capital gains and dividends, eliminate taxes on investment income for households making less than $200,000, repeal the estate tax, and drop the corporate tax rate to 25% from 35%.

“those blessed by being born to the wealthy few should inherit the earth”

the world is “the oyster of corporations seeking tax havens”

Wall Street is “free to gamble with other people’s money, and you rubes are on your own”

the military has “too little money,” where elderly workers have “too much security and leisure”

“our schools, water systems, roads and bridges, subways and trains, nutrition programs for children, Coast Guard and FBI” get “too much money” and can “do with much less”

and “children must play the hand that fate dealt them. If they are the heirs to the rich, they live charmed lives. If they are born to the poor, they must rise above it “

Santorum

So while Romney’s budget plans hand everything to the top 1% at the expense of the rest of us, Santorum has a different plan. Santorum’s plan takes from 99% of us in order to hand everything over to the top 1%.

While there are certainly differences on the margins between the former governor of Massachusetts and the former senator from Pennsylvania on economic policy issues, on the basic economic direction the candidates would take the country you could just about say that the winner of the Iowa caucus was “Mitt Santorum” with 50 percent of the vote.

… This chart by Think Progress on the candidates makes that remarkably clear. More tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and corporations? Check. Cuts to Medicare and Social Security? Check. Repealing health care and Wall Street reforms? Check and check.

The losers, of course, are economically struggling Americans, both those who have jobs but fret about their economic security, and those who are trying but failing to make it onto the economic ladder. In speeches after the caucus vote, “Mitt Santorum” feigned care for these people but offered relief only to the wealthiest Americans and the corporate lobbyists who control Washington. To sell an anti-worker, anti-middle-class agenda, “Mitt Santorum” trotted out the conservative movement’s tried-and-true bogeymen: an Obama administration that is “redistributing money” and “increasing dependency,” and government regulations and taxes that have “made workers uncompetitive by driving up the costs of doing business.”

It’s just a question of personal choice: do you want economic destruction of 99%, with everything going to the 1%, or do you want everything going to the 1%, and economic destruction for the 99%? With these two, that’s your choice.

About Dave Johnson

Dave has more than 20 years of technology industry experience. His earlier career included technical positions, including video game design at Atari and Imagic. He was a pioneer in design and development of productivity and educational applications of personal computers. More recently he helped co-found a company developing desktop systems to validate carbon trading in the US.